Film

By Michael McNulty For many Taiwanese director Yee Chih-Yen’s latest film since Blue Gate Crossing (2002) may go unnoticed, when it shouldn’t. A charming film with socio-economic undertones Salute! Sun Yat-Sen finds itself firmly grounded as a coming of age dramedy. When Lefty, a young man brimming with charm and a smile capable of melting ice caps, finds himself struggling to pay high school tuition fees, he concocts a plan to steal, with the help of his friends, and sell...

By Ellery Nick @Ellery_Nick Ant-Man is here, riding on the back of ants to rid the planet of those who would seek to miniaturise themselves for all the wrong reasons. And so we meet Scott Lang, a soft-hearted criminal in the mould of Edward Snowden. Released from jail, Scott comes to the attention of retired hero Dr. Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas, who’s been watching him through his teeny bug cameras and thinks he’s got what it takes become...

By Stephen Mayne @finalreel If it wasn’t for the severed penis in a box, Barney Thomson’s amiable voiceover might signal the start of a relaxed jaunt through the life of a working class stiff in Glasgow. Alas, there is that severed penis in a box. And an arm, and a foot, and pretty much every other part all coming through Royal Mail delivery. I don’t know if their rules expressly forbid the posting of body parts from murder victims; if...

Like, day festivals and half-naked people the instant the sun comes out, surely outdoor cinema is one of the best things about a London summer. With pop-up screens now proliferating the capital from May through till September it can feel overwhelming picking a pop up. (Overwhelming in a very first world problem sense.) Pop Up Screens offer good options across the capital which are importantly at the regular cinema price of ten pounds. Screens are up in picturesque Greenwich Peninsula,...

By Stephen Mayne @finalreel 13 minutes is nothing. It’s a delay on the trains, the length of time it takes to get through adverts in the cinema, a quick walk around the block, a snoozed alarm at dawn. It’s a tiny, insignificant passage of time, the same tiny, insignificant passage of time that Georg Elser missed his target by. Just 13 minutes closer and no more Hitler. It’s impossible to know what the world might have been like had Elser...

By Ben New Marjane Satrapi, writer/director of the multi award winning semi-autobiographical animation Persepolis (2007), has a stab at creating this offbeat quirky comedy scripted by the versatile (and one time Eerie Indiana episode) writer Michael R. Perry. Jerry, played by Ryan Reynolds, is a factory worker who lives alone above a bowling ally. That is except for his pet cat Mr. Whiskers and his dog Bosco who, also voiced by Reynolds, insist on giving him polarising advice and commentary...

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor “You’ll have to excuse my friend”, says Lloyd after his close companion, the dumb to his dumber, sent a coach of women on a bikini tour back to the nearest town in search of two oil boys. “He’s a little slow”. After weeks spent on the road travelling across America to reunite a client with her briefcase only to be dumped by the wealthy Mary Swanson, have their nest egg removed by the cops and...

By Toby Venables @TobyVenables “I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet,” says Back to the Future’s metal-playing Marty McFly to his bemused 1955 audience. “But your kids are gonna love it.” First released as All American High in 1987 to critical acclaim – but with very limited distribution – Keva Rosenfeld’s fly-on-the wall documentary of life at a California high school also seems to have found its time. Now remastered, it incorporates and updates the original, featuring a...

By Matt Keay To call The Happiness of the Katakuris a family drama would be to diminish its heart. To refer to it as a black comedy, however, would be to take away from the baffling and beautiful aspects of a film that contains a subplot of a Japanese confidence man claiming to be the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth II. Takashi Miike’s frankly bonkers 2001 musical/animation/love story/drama deals with the perils of setting up a bed and breakfast where the guests...